Do you wanna be in our gang...

How many of us have thought about giving it all up and starting afresh as a worker in the world of whisky? Richard Jones speaks to some people who have done just that

Go on, admit it, the thought has crossed your mind. There you were after a distillery tour, one dram safely inside you and another in your hand, quietly soaking up the atmosphere, the history, the general wonderfulness of the place.

Or perhaps you were enjoying a formal tasting, even a Masterclass at this year's Whisky Live, listening to the likes of Iain Henderson or Richard Paterson regale you with tales from their enviable working lives – the colourful characters, overseas travel and, of course, the great whiskies. Or you might simply have been relaxing in the haven of your own home, pouring yourself a Springbank 21 year old after a hard day at the office, when it came to you.

Why not turn my passion for whisky into something more? Doing something I really love for a living, leaving the daily grind behind and upping sticks to a remote distillery in an idyllic location? In short, why don't I go and work in the whisky industry?

For Jim Cook, now the United Kingdom sales director at Glenmorangie, even a career in professional football could not compare to whisky.

“It's probably every young schoolboy's dream to be a footballer and play for his favourite team,” he remarks. “But once I fulfilled this ambition, I needed to do something different, I needed to move on.”

Jim played for the two Edinburgh football clubs, Hearts and Hibernian, before finishing his playing days at Kilmarnock.

“My teams travelled quite extensively in Europe and so I came across a lot of...

• By : Richard Jones
• In : News
• Issue : 42
• Page : 36
• Words : 1,364